When I was ten, my parents started searching for their first home, taking me and my younger brother, Nicholas, with them. At a two-story yellow house with blue shutters, I clambered out of the van and ran toward the biggest tree in the yard. “Mommy, Mommy, it’s a Mongolian tree,” I exclaimed, proud I could finally identify something from the World Book encyclopedias I had studied for the past year, which seemed focused on faraway species I wouldn’t get to see until I was an adult: dolphins, redwoods, elk. (My mispronunciation was a peril of reading about a magnolia but not hearing the name out loud.) My mother loves to tell that story at dinner parties. Every time she does, I want to sink under the table, even though the tale perfectly encapsulates my relationship with nature:
